Chapter Two: In Which Spaceman Ethan begins a Quest

Spaceman Ethan looked down from the doorway of his spaceship to see a princess astride a horse, with her flowing blond hair streaming out in the wind. Beside her were her guards, their mouths hanging open in shock. Ethan smiled and waved at them again.

“My name,” shouted the princess, “is Princess Anna. You are in the field of one of my villages and they were afraid that you were a dragon.”

Ethan immediately reached for the wet-noodle gun in the holster on his belt. “D-dragon! You didn’t tell me this was a dragon planet!”

“It’s okay,” Anna raised her hands in a calming motion, “there are no dragons around.”

Ethan relaxed a little, but kept his hand close to his trusty, high-tech wet-noodle gun. He stepped over the mounded furrows of dirt piled around his spaceship and approached the princess and her guards.

“I’m sorry that I tore up your field. My ship ran out of fuel because of a moon-storm and I had to land somewhere. As soon as I can get more fuel I’ll go back to space,” Ethan said.

“Where can we get the fuel you need?” Anna asked.

Ethan looked around, scanning the horizon. Nothing around looked like a good source for fuel and his ship’s computer needed fuel to run to tell him where to find fuel to run it. He thought about bringing that up with the engineers the next time he saw them, but realized that wouldn’t help him much right now.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said, “My ship runs on golden rocks, but I don’t know where you keep those on your planet.”

The princess scratched her head for a moment. “Do you mean gold?” she asked.

“No, no,” Ethan replied, “Not gold, but golden rocks. Gold you make into pretty things like rings and decorations. Golden rocks are for fuel.”

“Well,” said Princess Anna, “I’m not at all sure where we might find a golden rock, but I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“Thank you!” Ethan smiled. He was going to like this planet, he could tell already.

“First, we should go and let the villagers know that you’re not a dragon so they can get back to work,” Anna said.

So they went back to the village, Anna and the guards riding on their horses and Ethan rolling along in his space-rover that he’d picked up when he visited the Bat Planet. His rover looked like what would be a carousel on Anna’s world, but was actually a fast and powerful rover that could drive over any terrain. Also it was decorated with bats and Ethan thought that was pretty cool.

As they were on the way back to the village, Anna asked Ethan questions about his ship and about space. Ethan told her all about his travels exploring the different planets. He avoided the dragon planets, mostly because dragons were cranky because they could never eat ice cream due to their fire-breath. He liked going to the bouncy-castle planet, though, because everyone one there would bounce to work or school or home and no one ever had to wear shoes.

“Do you think that, maybe after we find some fuel for your ship you might let me see some of these planets?” Anna asked.

“Of course!” Ethan replied, “I’d love to. Exploring planets is always more fun with friends.”

“Great!” Anna clapped her hands in joy, “I’m always looking for more jokes to share with my people. I bet there are some wonderful jokes in space!”

“There are,” Ethan said, “Did you hear the one about the flagerbloopjambertron that went into the krumpfstrumfblumf?”

“Uh…” Anna said.

“They all went home with a case of zooloopooloogooloochew!” Ethan could barely keep himself from laughing as he delivered the punchline.

“Ha, ha,” said Anna politely, “Oh, look we’re at the village.”

Ethan looked up from his laughter to see the village walls lined with villagers peeking over at him. He smiled and waved, but instead of smiling and waving back most of the villagers ducked behind the walls to hide everything but their eyes. Spaceman Ethan liked to observe the local customs on the planets he visited, so he did the same, pulling himself down behind the windscreen on his space-rover so just his eyes peeked out from over the top. He knew he would like this planet.

“Villagers!” Princess Anna called out, “This is Spaceman Ethan. His space ship crashed in the field and caused the roaring and fire that you mistook for a dragon. There is no dragon, only our friend.”

The village responded with tepid and weak applause.

“But to aid our new friend,” Anna continued, “We must find for him a golden rock to power his ship.” Anna saw the mayor of the village start to raise his hand. “And before you ask,” she went on, “No, it’s not gold, but golden rocks. There’s a difference.” The mayor put his hand down. “Does anyone know where we can find a golden rock for Ethan’s ship?”

No one in the village moved.

“Anyone?” Princess Anna asked again.

Slowly a young girl made her way from the back of the crowd to the front. She stood straight and tall, which for her was not very tall at all, and raised her hand high.

“Yes?” Anna called on her.

The young girl cleared her throat and said, “I heard about a golden tooth, is that like a golden rock?”

Anna turned to look at Ethan; Ethan nodded and smiled. “Yes,” Anna said, “Where is it.”

“I heard that a High Gloom Master had a golden tooth,” said the young girl.

The whole village gasped in unison. Ethan looked behind him and reached for his wet-noodle gun just in case a dragon had sneaked up on them. But everyone had gasped about what the girl had said.

“What’s a Gloom Master?” Ethan asked.

Anna turned to him with a worried expression on her face, “A High Gloom Master is the gloomiest, grumpiest, meanest creature in the entire land of Grumpypuss. Around here we tell jokes and remind each other of the happy things in life, but in Grumpypuss they only focus on the bad things, the sad things, and the mad things. And the High Gloom Master is the baddest, saddest, maddest of them all.”

Ethan was scared of the High Gloom Master. Even though he’d flown to planets with dragons and planets with broccoli footed lizards and planets with giraffe-necked turtles and planets with spanking machines that spanked all the naughty kids even if they were really sorry, Ethan was still scared. In all the planets he’d been to, Ethan had never heard of anything as grumptastic, as meanalicious, as gloomarific as the High Gloom Master of the Land of Grumpypuss. So Ethan started to cry.

“What’s wrong, Spaceman Ethan?” asked Princess Anna.

Ethan wiped his tears and tried to smile, “It’s nothing. I just really like flying in space and I’m sad that I won’t be able to anymore. But I like being here, so I guess it will be okay.”

“Why would you say that, Ethan?”

Ethan shrugged, “Because we can’t get a golden rock and I need it to fuel my ship.”

Princess Anna drew herself up into a regal, princessly posture and said, “Spaceman Ethan, there is no gloom, no grump that can fight the powers of a great joke. And I have the greatest jokes around. We will go to the land of Grumpypuss and find the High Gloom Master and make him laugh so hard that he’s not gloomy, not grumpy, not frumpy, not sad, not mad, and not bad anymore. Then we’ll see about getting you your golden rock and flying through space again.”

Ethan smiled a little bit and nodded.

Anna knew that she needed something more to cheer Ethan up. She thought through all of her jokes and then chose the best one for the occasion.

“What do you do when you see a spaceman?” Anna asked.

Ethan shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

“You park your horse there, man!”

It took Ethan just a moment, probably because he wasn’t accustomed to riding horses, and then he burst out laughing along with the rest of the village.

After the laughter subsided to just a few chuckles Anna turned to Ethan and said, “We’ll get you your space rock. Don’t worry about that. Besides, you have to take me to learn some new space jokes!”

Ethan grinned and said, “It’s a deal!”

Chapter One: In Which Princess Anna Confronts a Dragon

In the far off land of Flor in the country of Ida lived Princess Anna. Now Princess Anna was thoughtful and kind and generous, but what her people loved most about her was her laugh. No one knows if her laughter was magical or simply wonderful, but the whole land knew that when Princess Anna laughed so did everyone around her. She loved to visit the towns and villages all across the country of Ida in the land of Flor spreading her laughter and the joy that came with it. She collected jokes and stories that made her chuckle and giggle and all the people she visited shared with her new jokes and stories so that she never ran out of laughter to share.

Until one day she arrived at a small farming village on the edges of the country of Ida near the borders of the land of Flor where no one was laughing. Princess Anna went to the first villager she met and told her new favorite joke.

“What, good sir, do you call an alligator in a vest?”

The farmer from the village looked at her with forlorn eyes and simply shook his head.

Princess Anna continued, “An investigator!”

Though the joke often made her chortle and guffaw the sad look on the face of the farmer stole her laughter. With a polite nod, Princess Anna allowed the farmer to go on his way. She continued through the village looking for someone with whom she could share even the tiniest chuckle.

To a moping milkmaid she said, “What, my dear, do you call a heaping, pile of cuddly kittens?” Princess Anna selected this joke because not only was it hilarious, it also included the power of cuteness.

The milkmaid shrugged her ignorance without interrupting her moping for a moment.

“It is called,” Princess Anna said, “a meowntain!”

For her efforts the princess was rewarded with a wan smile before the milkmaid left to attend to her duties.

Princess Anna grew more and more concerned as she wended her way through the village. Without laughter, she wondered, how could she bring joy to the people?

At last she found the chief of the village, standing on the wall and looking off into the distance. Princess Anna climbed the steps to the top of the wall and faced the village chief. She thought back through all of the jokes that she had heard and told in all of the towns and all of the villages in the country of Ida in the land of Flor and chose the one that she thought most likely to get a laugh.

“Ah, it is good to find you at last. I was wondering, my good chief, what might you call a gentleman who had only a nose but lacked a body?”

The chief, trying to be polite, turned to Princess Anna and said, “I do not know, Your Highness.”

She could not help but crack a smile as she delivered the punchline, “Nobody Nose!”

For all her joking and jesting the most that the chief could offer in response was a kind nod.

“What,” Princess Anna snapped, “is the matter in your village? Where has all of the laughter gone?”

The chief pointed out over the fields, that the princess now noticed were black and smoking. “A dragon has swooped down from the skies and burned up all our crops. I apologize for my people, Your Highness, but they are sad because all of the work that they have put in to raise these crops is for naught and come winter we will all starve.”

“You most certainly will not!” said Princess Anna. “You will come to my castle and eat my food until you can grow new crops. No one in my country will starve so long as I am the princess!”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the chief said with tears standing in his eyes, “We owe everything to you. But even food for this winter will not cast out the dragon that has taken up residence in our fields. None of the farmers dare to go out to plant new crops so long as it is out there roaring and breathing fire to and fro.”

Princess Anna stuck out her chin, placed her hands on her hips, and glared out over the blackened fields. “Well, it appears that I shall have to have a chat with this dragon.”

With that she stomped down the stairs of the wall, clomped back to the stables in the village, and plomped herself onto her horse. She left so quickly and so suddenly that her guards barely had time to get up onto their own horses to follow her. By the time they caught up, she had already ridden out of the village gates and started across the charred field toward the smoking, roaring shape in the distance.

“Princess, Princess!” shouted the guards, “You must stop! We’ve heard there’s a dragon out there!”

Without slowing or turning Princess Anna replied, “I know full well there is a dragon out there and he had better get ready to leave because he has made my villagers sad.”

“But… but… PRINCESS!” the guards objected.

It mattered not, however, because the princess had set her mind to the task and would not be swayed. So the guards hurried their horses along to, at the very least, be in position to guard the princess when she confronted the dragon.

They crossed a burned up field of wheat and a toasted field of barley and a fried field of rye, all while the billow of smoke grew larger in front of them and the sound of the roaring grew louder in their ears. Princess Anna, in the very back of her mind, knew that her mother the Queen would scold her for getting her dress dirty and smelling of smoke, but she was too angry with the inconsiderate dragon to think about her dress.

Soon they came to a deep, black, smoking, hot rent in the earth as if some giant or wizard had drawn a massive line across the field pushing up the dirt and setting everything around aflame. Princess Anna followed the line as the roars grew louder. Her guards quaked in their saddles, but kept pace with their brave princess as they approached the heart of the roaring, smoking, gaping hole in the ground. She peered into the murky smoke looking for the dragon, but could only see puffs and clouds from the dragon’s fiery breath. Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, she covered her nose, dismounted her horse, and strode into the wafting smoke.

Once her eyes adjusted to the stinging and her ears adjusted to the roaring she noticed that it was not a dragon that had burned the fields and torn a black line in the earth, but a long, shiny, metal cylinder. As she approached, she could feel the heat radiating off of its gleaming surface and see what looked like the fletchings of an arrow near its base. Without touching the oven-hot thing, she circled around and noticed that the sound of the roaring, at this distance, sounded much more like the drawbridge of her parents’ castle winding closed. She listened and looked for the source of the sound and, after circling the thing several more times, she determined that the sound was coming from the side that was embedded in the soil.

After convincing her guards that there was no dragon, she instructed them to loop ropes around the thing — being very careful not to burn themselves by touching its hot surface — and using all three horses to heave the cylinder over. The steeds strained and pulled, but the thing did not move. The guards added their strength, pulling on the ropes along with the horses, and the cylinder shifted and groaned. But it wasn’t until Princess Anna began pulling too that it moved enough to free the side that had been embedded in the ground.

In that very moment the roaring, creaking, drawbridge-sound got very loud and then suddenly stopped. The horses and guards and princess all stopped pulling and turned to see that the shiny, metal cylinder had opened up on the side that had been in the ground. It looked very much like a drawbridge set on its side. On the inside of the drawbridge stairs were cut so that, if the cylinder were standing upright, they would have been perfect for going inside the hollow metal tube.

“Hello down there!” The voice came from inside the cylinder. The princess, flanked by her two guards, stood by the sideways steps and looked into the darkened entrance to the cylinder.

Princess Anna called, “Greetings! How can we help you?”

Into the doorway, for that is what it was, stepped a dashing young man in a shining suit of what looked like metal and fabric at the same time. His head was covered by a globe of glass and his voice came from a strange box clipped to his belt.

“Very nice to meet you,” the young man exclaimed, “My name is Ethan and I’m a spaceman!”

Foreword

Once upon a time I had some wonderful godchildren that lived too far away from me. Time and distance made it hard for me to be the kind of godfather that I really want to be (not the crimey type from the movies, but the nice kind that tells stories).

So this blog is my attempt to tell those stories. My one goal is to bring smiles to the faces of Princess Anna and Spaceman Ethan. If anyone else is entertained by what's here, that's just a bonus.